We already knew a lot about the Wii U based on previous hands-on time with the system and announcements from Nintendo. But now that we have the actual hardware in Opposable Thumbs HQ (read: my Pittsburgh apartment), we've noticed a few things that were a bit surprising. Here’s a quick, picture-filled look at some of those surprises. We’ll have much more Wii U coverage, including an in-depth review of the system and major games, as we get closer to the November 18 North American launch.

There’s a mystery connector at the bottom of the GamePad

In addition to a slot for the charger and a standard headphone jack at the top, the bottom of the tablet GamePad has a mysterious connector at the bottom. The user’s manual says this connector is for "controller accessories," but none have yet been announced. The connector is a thinner than the Wii Remote connector that was used for things like the Nunchuk and Classic Controller. Karaoke launch game We Sing doesn’t use it either—the microphone that comes with that game plugs into the USB slots on the base system. Curious...

UPDATE: Thanks to former Ars writer Ben Kuchera for pointing us towards yet another mystery connector on the back side of the GamePad, as shown above. The female screw hole in the middle of the controller's back ridge is very similar to the kind you'd see on a camera tripod, though the ridge would seem to get in the way of the base for most such tripods. The screw hole, and the divots next to it, line up with the mystery connector at the bottom in such a way that it looks like it could be used to secure a bulky accessory that latches in to both connectors and sits flush with the back of the GamePad. Our best guess at this point: an expanded battery pack to extend that three to five hour battery life...

The GamePad charging cradle uses pop-up contact points

The charging cradle that comes with the Deluxe edition of the Wii U is pretty nice, letting the system slide in easily and securely while standing it up for display. Instead of using a protruding charging point that might wear out as the controller is inserted and removed, the charging cradle uses a couple of small metal contacts that pop up when the GamePad is placed down, touching two small plates on the bottom of the controller. It's a nice touch that allows the controller to slide in and out very easily, and it's a bit reminiscent of the similar charging cradle that came with the 3DS.

The controllers only have digital shoulder buttons

I never really noticed this at preview events, but the four shoulder buttons on the Wii U GamePad and Pro Controller are purely digital. This is a somewhat significant difference from current systems like the Xbox 360 and the PS3, which feature two deeper shoulder buttons that can send variable analog input if they are squeezed more gently, which comes in handy in racing games and other titles that require finer controls aside from the two analog sticks. Ports of these kinds of games on the Wii U are going to have to work around this limitation.

The volume on the GamePad is adjusted by a slider.

This isn't so different from the volume slider on the 3DS, but for some reason I was expecting clickable volume up and down buttons on the Wii U GamePad. Maybe that's because tablets like the iPad have trained me to expect those kinds of buttons. Oh well.

The GamePad sync button is sunk in

You need a pen or paperclip to push the red button that syncs the GamePad to the Wii U system for the first time. It’s a minor annoyance, but not nearly as annoying as removing the battery cover (and sometimes the protective gel sleeve) to hit the similar sync button on old Wii Remotes. On the Wii U Pro Controller, the sync button sticks out so you can press it with your finger, which is kind of an odd difference.

The system is really deep

The Wii U’s physical dimensions have been well known for a while, so at some level I knew that the system was quite a bit deeper than the first Wii. But looking at the systems next to each other (as in the top view above), it’s quite striking just how much farther back the new system (black, left) juts into your entertainment unit. Looking back, Nintendo has done a good job of hiding this depth at pre-release events, often keeping the system in a cabinet that only showed the hardware from directly head-on. The Wii U is also slightly taller and wider than the Wii, but those differences are not nearly so pronounced.

The text on the front of the system is aligned horizontally

The way that the text is aligned on the front of the Wii U suggests it’s meant to be set down horizontally, with the long side down. That’s different from the Wii, whose text is only right-side up when the system is standing vertically. Another clue that the Wii U is meant to be laid flat: the system's rounded edges mean it can’t stand up vertically without a set of small attachable feet (as shown above), which aren’t even included with the $299 "Basic" version of the system.

The power brick is kind of big

The same sensor bar and RCA/component cables that work on the Wii will plug in to the Wii U just fine (or you can use an included HDMI cable for a better picture). For the power supply, though, the Wii U comes with a proprietary A/C adapter (right) with a power brick that’s significantly bigger than Nintendo’s old system (left). That’s to generate the 15 W of power that the new system needs, a slight increase from the 12 W needed for the Wii. The power brick size and energy consumption are still nothing compared to even the Xbox 360 Slim, but the increase from the Wii is still noticeable.

The Pro Controller button arrangement doesn't match the Xbox 360's

While we're talking small details, look at the way the various buttons are named on the Xbox 360 controller (bottom) and Wii U Pro Controller (top). That’s gonna be really hard to keep straight when switching between systems. Nintendo has been using this button naming layout since the SNES (and through to the Wii’s Classic Controller), so Microsoft is the one flouting convention here. Then again, if Microsoft had gone with the Nintendo standard, who’s to say the big N wouldn’t sue?

The Wii U Pro Controller lasts 80 hours on a single charge.

This was actually known before the system came out, but seeing this factoid in the user’s manual was just mind-boggling. The ridiculous battery life probably has something to do with the comparatively weak rumble motor in the Pro Controller, so there's a give and take involved here. But the Pro Controller charges by USB in just 4.5 hours, giving a nearly 18:1 ratio between charge time and play time. For context, the touchscreen Wii U GamePad lasts just three to five hours after a 2.5 hour charge time.

Promoted Comments

Nintendo is known for it's mystery connectors, that is to be expected from them for anyone who knows their history.

I personally do not worry about digital buttons on the shoulders. I have yet to play a racing game where I am jamming the accelerator less than 99% of the time, and in cases like Metal Gear games, the pressure sensitivity was not enjoyable. I am a ham-fisted fellow.

As for the button layout, call me a weirdo but I am still to this day used to the naming of the buttons Nintendo-style. I still find myself pausing when I have to press a certain button on my Xbox 360 controller because it is burned into memory that b is before a, and y is before x. It may very well be patented. I believe the d-pad is patented as well on Nintendo systems, and honestly I love the Nintendo d-pad many times more than what Sony and ESPECIALLY Microsoft offers. My hadoukens and shoryukens were perfected on that cross. Hail to the king.

Nintendo has been using this button naming layout since the SNES (and through to the Wii’s Classic Controller), so Microsoft is the one flaunting convention here.

Flouting, not flaunting. Although "defying" seems easier to say (and understand, for many people).

Either way, it's tremendously disorienting every time I use an Xbox controller. Doesn't help any that it has a red button in exactly the same place as my SNES controller, except Microsoft's is B rather than A. Arrgh!

I was reminded of the button naming differences just the other day when trying to map SNES emulator buttons to an XBox gamepad :"wait, are they swapped again?".

I was always certain they're swapped for design patent reasons, though I can't find a source right now. It's interesting that they also chose the same four colors as the SNES controller, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, but also positioned them differently. I always found Sony's cross, square, triangle circle conventions much clumsier

I'm sure there's some interesting history behind the buttons. For example, why on the original NES is the B to the left of A? For us left-to-right reading westerners, that's odd. This probably naturally led to the SNES buttons keeping that order for A and B, and followed the same order for X and Y. So I guess it was two birds with one stone for Microsoft: restore a more intuitive order for us westerners while avoiding a design patent...

Nintendo is known for it's mystery connectors, that is to be expected from them for anyone who knows their history.

I personally do not worry about digital buttons on the shoulders. I have yet to play a racing game where I am jamming the accelerator less than 99% of the time, and in cases like Metal Gear games, the pressure sensitivity was not enjoyable. I am a ham-fisted fellow.

As for the button layout, call me a weirdo but I am still to this day used to the naming of the buttons Nintendo-style. I still find myself pausing when I have to press a certain button on my Xbox 360 controller because it is burned into memory that b is before a, and y is before x. It may very well be patented. I believe the d-pad is patented as well on Nintendo systems, and honestly I love the Nintendo d-pad many times more than what Sony and ESPECIALLY Microsoft offers. My hadoukens and shoryukens were perfected on that cross. Hail to the king.

As for the button layout, call me a weirdo but I am still to this day used to the naming of the buttons Nintendo-style. I still find myself pausing when I have to press a certain button on my Xbox 360 controller because it is burned into memory that b is before a, and y is before x. It may very well be patented. I believe the d-pad is patented as well on Nintendo systems, and honestly I love the Nintendo d-pad many times more than what Sony and ESPECIALLY Microsoft offers. My hadoukens and shoryukens were perfected on that cross. Hail to the king.

I think it makes sense for Sony to name its buttons the way it does because of this. It was weird getting used to it at first, but now I never confuse the symbols with XYABor YXBA on the other controllers. I'm pretty sure Nintendo's "+Control Pad" layout is patented, though, hence Sony and MS calling their versions something different entirely.

Speaking of mysteries, whats up with the optical drive? I'm reading mixed messages on what its capable of, seeing that its not quite a blu ray drive, but it could be.

Holds 25 Gb discs, so in the range of blu ray, but reads at a considerably higher rate. From what I'm seeing, it seems to be a new standard, but probably backwards compatible so we can watch blu ray movies.

Anyone able to confirm?

If so, its an interesting play on piracy. Plonk a new drive in that works for everything else, but with a standard that cant easily be copied and/or used elsewhere. If the games NEED that faster read speed, then burning pirated discs on a PC may not be possible.

I think Sony's solution is far more elegant. Using letters from the roman alphabet is vaguely insulting and potentially confusing* to people in countries which use a different alphabet system. Sony's use of geometric shapes is more universal.

*I'm not actually saying anyone is confused by the letters, but imagine if Nintento had used glyphs from the Japanese language for the NES controller, how badly that would work in America.

I can answer. Nintendo likes making discs formats that are like one or two big changes off of a normal format (DVD with Gamecube and Wii) and this Wii U drive is probably a Blu-ray with one or two big differences. They do it to avoid licensing fees.

Nintendo said the Wii drive couldn't play DVDs but some hackers proved it could.

You're not much of a GT/Forza fan are you? Although to be fair, people who are usually just buy special wheel/pedal controllers...

I use a wheel myself.

Also, the original classic controller (the oval shaped ones) had analog shoulder buttons. Unfortunately ZL and ZR were in the middle making them seriously annoying to press. I don't know of any Wii games that used the analog function of those buttons, though.

One other thing:The charging base for the for the gamepad has it's own power brick.

I was reminded of the button naming differences just the other day when trying to map SNES emulator buttons to an XBox gamepad :"wait, are they swapped again?".

I was always certain they're swapped for design patent reasons, though I can't find a source right now. It's interesting that they also chose the same four colors as the SNES controller, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, but also positioned them differently. I always found Sony's cross, square, triangle circle conventions much clumsier

I'm sure there's some interesting history behind the buttons. For example, why on the original NES is the B to the left of A? For us left-to-right reading westerners, that's odd. This probably naturally led to the SNES buttons keeping that order for A and B, and followed the same order for X and Y. So I guess it was two birds with one stone for Microsoft: restore a more intuitive order for us westerners while avoiding a design patent...

IIRC the reason for B and A being labelled like they were was because their uses were swapped for JP and NA, IE: A button's function in japan was remapped to B button for the states. The same was true for O and X on the PlayStation.

So A button being labeled like it was made sense from the Japanese perspective of A being the main menu selection button in Japan, much like B/X was in the states.

I was reminded of the button naming differences just the other day when trying to map SNES emulator buttons to an XBox gamepad :"wait, are they swapped again?".

I was always certain they're swapped for design patent reasons, though I can't find a source right now. It's interesting that they also chose the same four colors as the SNES controller, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, but also positioned them differently. I always found Sony's cross, square, triangle circle conventions much clumsier

I'm sure there's some interesting history behind the buttons. For example, why on the original NES is the B to the left of A? For us left-to-right reading westerners, that's odd. This probably naturally led to the SNES buttons keeping that order for A and B, and followed the same order for X and Y. So I guess it was two birds with one stone for Microsoft: restore a more intuitive order for us westerners while avoiding a design patent...

Reg/green/yellow/blue is the color set for Windows, and Microsoft has taken to using that color set on all their stuff. Check out the icons for the various Windows utilities to see how they've integrated those colors into them. As for the button order, I suspect it is because English is a left-to-right language while Japanese is a right-to-left language. Both placements seem the most natural in the countries where the respective consoles are designed.

It's interesting that they also chose the same four colors as the SNES controller, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, but also positioned them differently. I always found Sony's cross, square, triangle circle conventions much clumsier

Even more fun is that around the ps2 era, games standardised YES / NO. Except that they standardised in two ways.

I can answer. Nintendo likes making discs formats that are like one or two big changes off of a normal format (DVD with Gamecube and Wii) and this Wii U drive is probably a Blu-ray with one or two big differences. They do it to avoid licensing fees.

Nintendo said the Wii drive couldn't play DVDs but some hackers proved it could.

Thanks Sonan, I'm thinking similar myself - differences being a reader capable of reading at a faster rate, hence burn a little differently to make the discs incompatible with the bog standard blu ray drive.

So from a piracy point of view, if PC's with blu ray burners cant write to that appropriate speed, or the discs arent readily available, it could be a pretty effective piracy mechanism.

I doubt they've left out blu ray playback, that would be a ridiculous mistake to make, especially as the bulk of the technological capability has to be there anyway. Just wanting confirmation as it is something different to standard.

I doubt they've left out blu ray playback, that would be a ridiculous mistake to make, especially as the bulk of the technological capability has to be there anyway. Just wanting confirmation as it is something different to standard.

It's interesting that they also chose the same four colors as the SNES controller, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, but also positioned them differently. I always found Sony's cross, square, triangle circle conventions much clumsier

Even more fun is that around the ps2 era, games standardised YES / NO. Except that they standardised in two ways.

I have a Japanese PSP, and PSPs are region free so I can play Japanese or English games. Things get really funky when some games use the console's region to determine the O/X Yes/No arrangement. I could be playing a game in English where O is Yes and another where O means No.

My brain seems to associate Xbox buttons with their colours, so it's a blueX, yellowY, redB and greenA. If I see a button prompt on screen without those colours, my brain switches to the Nintendo layout instead. Bizarre. @__@

It's interesting that they also chose the same four colors as the SNES controller, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, but also positioned them differently. I always found Sony's cross, square, triangle circle conventions much clumsier

Even more fun is that around the ps2 era, games standardised YES / NO. Except that they standardised in two ways.

By the time MS entered the market, the switch was already done. The PS1 games basically had a schism halfway through the console's life. Those prior to about 1997 generally used O as confirm and X as cancel worldwide, but those after swapped those two buttons for western audiences. The first game I can remember after this switch was FF8, but I'm pretty sure some of the games that came out in the gap between FF7 and FF8 had already made the switch, even from the same publisher.

By the time the PS2 came out it was basically cemented that X was confirm and O was cancel for western systems, and was reflected in the BIOSes of those systems.

I do sometimes wonder why that happened though. I think originally it had something to do with the size of the controllers for each respective market, much like the reason MS ended up shipping that gigantic ass Duke controller for the XBOX at launch.

I personally do not worry about digital buttons on the shoulders. I have yet to play a racing game where I am jamming the accelerator less than 99% of the time, and in cases like Metal Gear games, the pressure sensitivity was not enjoyable. I am a ham-fisted fellow..

You've obviously never played a Forza or Gran Turismo racer then. Whilst the whole digital pad and arcade nostaliga thing is something I appreciate, in a cutting edge console it is a mystery why Nintendo would opt for a gamepad with such limited gaming potential and poor battery life. Especially after the Gamecube controller which was a brilliant design.

That is a fairly big power brick for only 45w typical/75w max power draw. The 360 slims power brick is 135w and I don't think it's that much bigger, but it's hard to tell from pictures, and the PS3 manages to make it internal. Also how hard would it have been for it to make it the same colour as the console?

Can't wait for some third party teardowns and chip microscopy, we still have almost no clue what's inside.

Speaking of mysteries, whats up with the optical drive? I'm reading mixed messages on what its capable of, seeing that its not quite a blu ray drive, but it could be.

Holds 25 Gb discs, so in the range of blu ray, but reads at a considerably higher rate. From what I'm seeing, it seems to be a new standard, but probably backwards compatible so we can watch blu ray movies.

Anyone able to confirm?

If so, its an interesting play on piracy. Plonk a new drive in that works for everything else, but with a standard that cant easily be copied and/or used elsewhere. If the games NEED that faster read speed, then burning pirated discs on a PC may not be possible.

It's the same as the Wii essentially using DVDs but having no DVD playback capabilities, so it was never legally allowed to be called DVD since they never had the licence. The 25GB 22MB/s disks on the Wii U is dead on the money for a single layer 4x-6x blu ray drive, it's almost certain it uses that type of disk but again with no blu ray licence so they can't call it that.

it's almost certain it uses that type of disk but again with no blu ray licence so they can't call it that.

It was rumoured that it was HD-DVD. I don't know if that was ever debunked. It's a nice theory, but the tooling and componentry may simply not be available/be even more expensive than dealing with BD now anyway.

For me mystery connectors usually are a good thing. Well... as long as they get used. :x

Power brick, shame but no surprise. Ditto on size.

The analog thing (lack therof) is a major issue I see. Its crucial in racing games of any realism past mario kart / burnout to have analog acceleration out of corners. Ditto on brakes. Then again since i dont see nintendo trying to compete with forza or GT i suppose its not that bad. Still there are many times that analog is truely a better option. So thats the only one that irks me. But there is the pro i suppose.

By the time MS entered the market, the switch was already done. The PS1 games basically had a schism halfway through the console's life. Those prior to about 1997 generally used O as confirm and X as cancel worldwide, but those after swapped those two buttons for western audiences. The first game I can remember after this switch was FF8, but I'm pretty sure some of the games that came out in the gap between FF7 and FF8 had already made the switch, even from the same publisher.

By the time the PS2 came out it was basically cemented that X was confirm and O was cancel for western systems, and was reflected in the BIOSes of those systems.

Huh? I just booted a PS2 and checked the BIOS. ○ is Enter (yes) and × is Back (cancel / no). Next, a bunch of games.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.